Good Morning!

Years ago I read a book called Love by the Glass. It was written by two journalists Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, who started out writing about wine on the side while covering completely different subjects and they eventually became the the wine reviewers for the New York Times. I really loved the book it was more about how their relationship grew and how they became wine people, not so much about wines, but it did have some awesome wine advice packed in the stories.

I read the book before I really got into making and drinking wine. They discussed how they traveled by train from NYC to Napa each year and all the wines they tried and how they started to “judge” wines. They talked a lot about the questions people would write to them and they told stories about different people they had meet along the way.

While telling some of these stories some were tearjerkers, like one couple who bought wine on a trip and they had been saving the bottle for a “special” occasion, the wife had passed and now he did not know when to open the bottle. Then on a lighter note they talked about a couple who fell in love with a wine in Italy and they brought a case home and they were saving it for their son’s wedding…he turned out to be gay!

So Dorothy and John decided to host the first ever Open Bottle Night…a regular night that you can turn into an occasion because of the wine. Once they set a date they ask everyone to join in and then write in afterward and talk about how the wine was and what they did. This turned out to be wildly popular. While reading this book, it also opened my eyes to wine is as much an experience as it is a taste, flavor etc…

So last Saturday night was Open the Bottle Night…Or at least it was in the Twitter universe. So I looked in my cellar and pulled out a bottle that we bought about 4 years ago at Merryvale winery on a trip with a HUGE group of our friends. It was such an awesome day I kinda wanted to save the bottle for when we would all be together again, but we live so far apart now, so it might be quite sometime before that reunion happens.

I opened a bottle of the Oakville Cab produced by Merryvale…it was wonderful and while I was opening it I called a few of the friends who where with me that day and we caught up while I enjoyed the wine.

Please, do yourself a favor and open the bottle you been saving…you will enjoy it and smile about when you found the wine.

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi